Video Card for 19" monitor, 720p TV

[dumpsta]

Hi there

I was wondering if someone can help me choose between :

9600gt - $70 "Good 1680x1050 performance in most games"
HD4850 - $100 "Exceptional 1680x1050 performance in most games, 1920x1200 in most games with some lowered detail"

quotes are from Tom's Hardware article "Best video cards for the money sep '09"

I'm aware that the faster card is obviously better, but considering the 1280x1024 max resolution of my monitor, would it be overkill? I'm also planning on hooking up my 40" 720p television (which I've never done before) which would be using 1280x720.

It seems that most of the newer cards out there are geared towards larger monitors with higher resolutions. I'm also not planning on getting a larger monitor.

I'm not a huge fan of FP shooters, but I do like to play them from time to time. I liked modern warfare 1 and I'd like to play the sequel when it comes out. I'm more of a fan of strategy games or games where i can sit back and use my gamepad controller.

I currently have

Athlon xp 4000 (OC to 2.7ghz single core)
Nvidia 6600gt

I'm planning on replacing my cpu/mb/ram in the near future, depending on how much of an improvement the video card gets me. Thanks for any recommendations and for reading this post

 

[redwine01]

Hello there. First of all as u r a fan of strategy game i will suggest u upgrade ur processor first as most of the strategy games are heavily cpu intensive. A phenom II x3 720 can be found at $120 which will help u a lot. And also ur current processor will hugely bottleneck any good current cards. So no matter what u need a processor upgrade first. Then we can come to video card upgrade. As for 1280 resolution if u dont plan to upgrade ur monitor anytime soon and may want to future proof ur pc for 1 or 2years then i will say go for 5750. Although it maybe a bit overkill in that resolution but it will make sure that any games in future can be run smootly with all the settings at high without a problem. One reason i recommend 5750 over 4850 is that it is only $30 more than 4850 has more gaming power than 4850, takes less power and less heat, good overclocking capability and the newer technology with dx11 support. But if u r really in tight budget a 4850 will quench ur thirst also no matter what. And also if u upgrade ur graphics card make sure u have a decent psu. A 500W decent branded psu like corsair, antec, asus, thermaltake can run ur whole system just fine.

So the bottom line is upgrade ur processor and video card- And upgrade ur psu if needed.

 

[stridervm]

Hmm.... Athlon XP with a 6600GT? It kinda sounds like you might have an AGP system. In case you really have an AGP system it would be wiser to get a whole new rig, as the prices for upgrading that processor and video card would be enough to get to the cheapest PCI-E system and still end up being faster than your old system.

For 1280x1024, heck even the Radeon 3850 would be pretty good for your system, and will be a huge improvement over your GeForce 6600GT.

 

[dumpsta]

Thanks for responding. I considered replacing everything at once, but it's a little more than what I want to spend as a one time splurge. I figured that my graphics card was the oldest part of the system, so I'd replace that first and see. I figured for the time being, replacing my graphics card and keeping my current cpu would be better than keeping my graphics card and replacing my cpu.

It kinda sounds like you might have an AGP system

Nope, I'm using the pci-e version of the 6600gt.

 

[redgarl]

For 720p resolutions, a single 4870 512 mb is way enough. You can get one at 100$ and render every games at max settings. Crysis too if you don't put any anti-aliasing.

edit : euh, an Athlon XP... maybe not Crysis at max after all